Lucca's Secret

Lucca has a secret.

She's never told it to anyone. Not Marle in the palace, or Chrono in the
village. Not even her father, although he would be the one most likely to
understand. And she'll never tell any of them because they would tell her
to destroy what she did, and she can't do that.

It started when everything else ended. A celebration in honor of her and
her friends on the last day of the Millenial Fair. And then, when the revelry
and festivities had ended, a quiet moment at the back of the Square, by the
telepod. Goodbyes were exchanged, and all the people Lucca had met during
her journey through time went through the gate and were gone forever. It
was after they all left that she spoke the words that led to her secret:

We should dismantle the Epoch. It's served it's purpose.

And so it was. Naturally the task fell to her; Marle was too busy attending
to royal matters, Chrono wasn't interested, and both of them were so mechanically
clumsy that they would be more of a nuisance than a help. So she dragged
the time machine into her basement lab and set about taking it apart.

But when she cracked the hood, she found herself stymied. Oh, the weapons
systems and flying components that Dalton's technicians had added on were
simple enough to strip off; they had been thrown on haphazardly. But when
she got past the mess to the machine's heart, she found she couldn't go any
farther.

At first glance, it appeared to be put together in almost as slap-dash a
manner as Dalton's additions were. But when you hit the ignition and everything
started moving, it was a glory to behold. Every piece had its place, and
they all moved in a sort of perfect clockwork dance. She could study it a
dozen years without getting so much as a glimpse at how it worked, but she
could see how it all fit together, and when you saw it in motion you realized
that the slap-dash appearance came not from design, but rather from lack
of useable parts. 2300 AD was a great year for scrap metal, but it wasn't
very good for anything that functioned. Balthazar had made do with what was
available, and managed to create a masterpiece.

Every time she picked up her wrench to start unscrewing essential components,
she wound up studying its inner workings for hours. Eventually, she decided
that she couldn't go through with it. She was a scientist, and this was knowledge
that she could not allow to die. Oh, she would remember how everything fit
together, but once she died, that was it. This beautiful machinery that intrigued
her so would vanish forever, and never be seen again. She couldn't do it.
It was like asking a writer to burn the last copy of his favorite novel,
or a painter to step on a beautiful portrait or landscape. It would be a
crime-no, worse than that, an act of high treason- against herself to eradicate
this beautiful machine from history.

On the other hand, though, she knew it had to be done. The Epoch could not
be left lying around for some idiot to steal and go joyriding through history
with. It was too powerful a device to be allowed to fall into the hands of
an irresponsible fool(or worse), and there was no way to guarantee that it
wouldn't short of dismantling it. There was only one thing they were all
certain of about the Epoch: whatever it was made out of would likely outlive
all of them.

And so, torn between what she needed to do and what she wanted to do, she
chose to do neither. With great reluctance she took apart the Epoch's engine.
But rather than scattering, junking or at least throwing into a pile the
parts, like her friends had no doubt expected, she laid them out lovingly
in order, and labelled each one. Then she wrote down instructions for assembling
the ship from its component parts in a book, and laid it down beside them.

And now, sealed into a secret room in her basement, behind magically-reinforced
walls, the Epoch sits, waiting. Waiting for someone to come and find Lucca's
lovingly written instructions and the carefully organized parts, and put
them all back together. Perhaps it will never happen. Perhaps it'll happen
not too long from now. But until it happens, it will be Lucca's secret.